Sometime Around Midnight
by thoughtsofanonymous
Summary: Post!Neverland. Captain Swan. Killian battles his regret for the recent decisions he has made in regards to Emma, and hopes to find mental sanctuary through enough drinks at the bar. Unfortunately he is forced to face the consequences of his decisions when Emma comes in with her date. (I own no rights to the show, Once Upon a Time.)


The Rabbitt's Hole was busier than usual that night. Dwarves, thieves, farmhands, and other shabby folk littered the bar area. The worn antiquated clock that hanged about the shelf of liquor ticked relentlessly. It was quarter to midnight; the night was still young.

Killian stared at the amber fluid sitting still in the small glass in front of him.

_"So that's it then? You're not even going to try?" Her cry was a plague of frustration and emerging tears; her beautiful composure breaking before his eyes._

He took hold of the shot and threw it back mercilessly. He slammed the empty glass down on the smooth mahogany surface. "Another," he mumbled lowly to the bartender. The scruffy looking server gave him a half-amused, half-pitiful stare before refilling his glass with another strong dose of burnt-colored rum.

_"You can't keep us both wrapped around your pretty little finger, Princess." His voice came out in a low growl in an effort to cover the trembling with rage. "Let's take a moment to compare. The father of your child with all of the pure intentions would bend over backwards to salvage the pieces of your fairytale romance. Your son will choose him, and don't dare deny how his happiness weighs in your decision. It was only a matter of time before you came here with your farewells. Darling, I'm simply jumping before being pushed."_

The fluid was gone before he could recall picking up the glass. The fire burned and simmered the gnawing ache rumbling from his gut. The same memory had been playing on repeat for the past two weeks.

He hadn't seen her since that night. He didn't stray too far from the docks during daylight. When the darkness of night did invite him off of his ship, he only lurked in the rougher areas where he felt safe not running into her. The guilt kept him at bay; he never considered himself a self-loathing coward until now.

His sense of refuge was immediately shattered when the bell rang at the entrance of the bar. Baelfire walked in with a hesitant nervous expression. Killian rolled his eyes with a bitter scowl, glaring down at the dark running grain of the wooden bar. He owed Baelfire the chance to have Emma. As hard as Killian tried to fight the ancient memory of the younger child, standing on deck in the midnight of Neverland shouting harsh accusations of destroying his family, he couldn't. He couldn't help but hold himself responsible, to a degree, for taking his mother out of his life. And now here he was trying as desperately as he could to make it up to him now.

The bell to the entrance rang again. Killian's sharp glare darted up at the door long enough to recognize her long blonde hair set in lustrous waves. The soft bar lights raked over the short white dress that wrapped perfectly around her lean frame. He knew that dress; he saw it hanging off of a metal wire in her loft. Of course he never took Emma as the dress type; he figured it was her mother's. It did not look nearly so fitting, so beautiful, on the hanger as it did on Emma.

As if on cue, the local band began to play a slow melancholy song, with lyrics fitting of his personal situation. Killian bit down hard on his lip, drawing a trace of blood and begrudgingly turned his back to her. "Another," he called out with a hint of tremble to his voice. The server nodded and filled up the glass. As he threw it back, the rum seeped into his lip and burned the lower half of his jaw. The pain numbed down the unwelcome emotions that had begun to fester.

Her laughter echoed from across the room. It sounded so ridiculously foreign. Either she has a laugh which she associates with every man, or that was the most feigned laugh Killian has ever heard come out of her mouth. It was too loud, too forced, to be the Emma Swan he knew. She laughed again and it was enough for him to turn around to get another look at her.

There she was, dancing with him. She swayed at the balls of her feet in sync with the music, her white dressing moving down from her hips falling against her thighs. Despite her convincing motions, he automatically sensed something to be wrong. Very wrong.

Her smile was tugged very far up her cheeks, trembling at the corners. Her attention was focused towards her dance partner, Baelfire, though not sincerely. She should have been speaking with her eyes, narrowing and widening her gaze, silently sharing thoughts and emotions with him. Instead her stare was concete, burning a hole into the center of Baelfire's forehead. She held her clear drink close to her; the tight grip around the handle was white and needing. He looked back up to her and met her knowing gaze.

That wide broken look was enough to send him whipping back around in a frenzy, forgetting that he ever had the nerve to look over in the first place. A new full glass of rum was waiting on the bar table for him. He thankfully picked up the glass and embraced the spiced burn. Part of him wanted to get up and leave. Another part of him wanted to turn back around and steal another look, even if it wasn't the Emma Swan he remembered two weeks ago.

He sat there weighing his options and waiting for the server to pour him out another glass when suddenly, a soft hand pulled at his shoulder. Judging from how her cool fingers gently brushed the bare of his neck under the collar of his shirt, immediately he knew it was her. He sighed and swallowed the ball growing at the base of his rum-scorched throat.

"Hey," she mumbled loud enough for him to hear her over the crowds and music.

He reluctantly turned to face her, regretting his decision the moment he finally got a close look at her. Her face was utterly blank. Though the pigments of her hazel green eyes sparkled under the lights, her gaze was nonetheless hollow. "How are you?"

He felt himself staring, no more like gawking. A moment passed by and the uncomfortable silence began to eat away at him. _Just answer her bloody question! Say anything to make her go away!_ He breathed in a gulp of dense humid air reeking with the odor of beer. "Didn't think I'd come across you in a place like this," he managed to find slurred words.

She blinked, "You're not dressed like yourself."

No he wasn't. Abandoning the leather and silver metal appendage was all an effort to blend in. Now, more than ever, he didn't need her finding him in the crowds. His dark jeans and simple black collar shirt had done their job fairly well until now.

"No I'm not," he answered back hesitantly. She shifted the weight on her feet, unconsciously leaning closer to him. He expected her expression to change. He begged for it to. Even if it was for just a brief moment, he wanted to see his Swan again. She was close enough to catch a whiff of her scent; traces of rose buds infused with clean linen.

And just like that _he was back in the safety of his cabins._ _Still anchored in the bay of Neverland, the both of them were engulfed in pleasant darkness. She stretched her body over him and sighed peacefully into the nook of his neck. He wrapped his arms around her bare back and held her close against his chest. Brushing an affectionate kiss along her roots, he gathered in her signature scent until he was consumed by it. _

Suddenly he caught something else lingering in her scent that shouldn't belong to her ... liquor, hard liquor. He could tell she was trying to cover it up, but he still caught it. This hollowness, the liquor, the laugh... she was in pain. A lot of pain. Killian swallowed and tried his hardest to hold an even stare with her. "This isn't the sort of place I'd imagine you coming to."

Worse than denying his claim, Emma blinked and didn't say a word. _Was_ _she even trying to hide it? Why the hell hasn't Baelfire pulled her outside, away from the crowds, to talk to her?_ Something was wrong and it was as if he didn't even notice.

Then it dawned on him. This _wasn't_ the sort of place Emma went to for fun. She _wasn't_ the dress type. That _wasn't_ her laugh. What seemed like a rather unconventional, though normal enough date for Baelfire was something meant entirely for Killian.

She knew she'd find him in a place like this. She needed him to see her. She needed him to see what he had done to her.

_Gods, how could I have hurt her like this?_

Killian was about to break and give in to the painful sight of her. What the fuck was he even thinking when he let go of her? His assumptions that were forged entirely off of his low self-esteem had dragged not only him, but also her, into a dark pit of emotional turmoil. Just as he opened his mouth, Emma mechanically smiled and sat up from her chair. "Nice to see you, Hook."

Baelfire walked out of the bathroom and looked at his approaching date with confusion. She leaned in to his ear, wrapping an arm around his neck to pull him close as she whispered something to him. The mere intimacy made Killian sick to his stomach. Neal pulled away with a concerned look.

_Oh, so now the bloody git is concerned._

A moment passed of conversation between the two of them before Baelfire turned and walked towards the door. Killian growled with annoyance at how he treated her. _He had her_ and didn't even bother to be sure that she got out of the bar before he did. Hasn't the man heard of 'ladies first?' _Gods, the boy was nearly unrecognizable._ Emma followed him with a lowered gaze. Just before she walked out the door after him, she hesitated and allowed her eyes to snap back and meet his.

That was it: the breaking point. He felt his body tremble with rage, pain, regret, longing and need. His knuckles went white gripping the bar table, the only thing keeping him grounded to his decision to let her go. "Hey buddy, you alright?" The bartender paused on the other side of the bar, wiping a glass dry with a white rag.

"What is it?" Another drinker that sat close by Kilian asked the bartender.

Killian glared down at the table and continued to shudder with his unbearable guilt and rage. The bartender turned to address the fellow drinker. "Ah probably just had too much to drink, Jack." He turned to Killian and refilled his glass, "this one's your last for the night."

"The guy's gone pale; he looks like he's seen a ghost." The drinker muttered to the bartender. The bartender grinned and refilled the man's beer. "The charm of our sheriff has probably just got the best of him." The drunk laughed and took a swig of his beer.

Killian plunged his good hand into his pocket and pulled out a wad of wrapped bills. It was much more than he owed, but he didn't care. (He had enough gold stashed on his ship to buy the bloody pub.) He pushed the ridiculous sum of money to the bartender and threw back the last shot.

"Keep the change," he mumbled and ungracefully found his footing off of the bar stool. The effects of a three-hour binge weighed down on how fast he could stumble out of the bar. By the time he pushed the door open and stumbled out onto the street, Baelfire had already driven off with Emma.

"No," he growled and began walking in the general direction of Emma's loft. People outside of the bar stared at him with concern. Ruby called out to him, "Hey Hook! Are you okay?" He couldn't quite make out what the rest of them were saying. It sounded like a slur of voices, but he didn't care enough to turn around.

Then that terrible laugh rang out in his thoughts: the tortured sound of her voice being pushed from her being. It was such an injustice to how she really sounded. Her true laugh was a beautiful soft ringing to his ears, easily be mistaken for a siren's song.

He gritted his teeth and stumbled faster down the road. The orange glow of the street lights blurred in his drunken vision. The memory of Emma's lost gaze turned his stomach. He couldn't bear to fathom Baelfire touching his broken Swan. Now, thanks to him, she was somewhere in a car with him alone. He wasn't even sure where they went, though he was praying that she asked him to take her to her loft.

"Emma," he muttered out her name like a broken promise. If he could, he would reach her tonight before it was too late. He would fix what he had done.

Before he knew it, he was running. Desperation was now flooding through him and suppressing his drunkenness. He needed to reach her. He needed to see her. He needed to save his Swan before she was lost from him forever. The lack of cars on the road boded well for Killian, who was now sprinting like a madman through the well-lit streets.

He rounded the final corner where he knew he would find see the loft. His chest ached when not only did he see the entrance to the loft, but when he saw _her_, standing with her arms wrapped tightly around her chest facing the front door. Baelfire's car turned the corner a little ways down the road.

Killian slowed down across the street from her. Her back was turned to him. She was still fumbling with her house keys. Her hands were shaking. He took another step forward, still gasping in air from his sprint. "Swan," he called out weakly to her while making his way across the street. She froze and slowly turned around. She looked at him with obvious shock, the pirate was drunk off his ass yet still managed to practically run down Neal's car.

"Hook," she stuttered out nervously. "What the hell are you doing here?"

He kept walking to her with complete resolution until he stopped just short of a foot away from her.

She took a weary step back, "You're drunk."

"As well as sorry," he countered numbly. "The moment I tried letting you go was the moment you permanently scathed your mark in me. Beyond everything I've ever done, or tried to do to make up for my losses, this was by far the worst." He reveled in the sight of her shock, being her first unfeigned emotion of the night. Her bottom lip subtly tucked into her mouth. He noticed her shaking fingers ball into a fist gripping her house keys. Her eyes widened with uncertainly.

Fuck what he said. Fuck what he thought of himself. Even if he didn't believe he couldn't give her everything and more, he was going to damn well try. Because even now amidst the cool, misty showers of midnight, she was looking at him in such a way that he now knew she wouldn't with Baelfire. His gaze softened apologetically into hers. "Love," he struggled to articulate, "consider your message received."

* * *

**Now go listen to the song "Sometime Around Midnight" by The Airborne Toxic Event and please let me know what you think! :)**

**When I first listened to this song ****_after_**** I started to ship Captain Swan, this oneshot played in my head like a scene. I'm not sure if that happens for other people, but I just wanted to share my madness in honor of OUAT Sunday!**


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